← Fleet repair-or-replace planner
This planner vs. a spreadsheet
This decision fits a spreadsheet's shape: one row per asset, a keep-cost formula, a replace-cost formula, a rank column against a budget. This page names no specific product — it compares against the generic method of building that sheet yourself, not a competing calculator.
What each one is for
A spreadsheet can run every formula this planner runs. Nothing here is beyond ordinary spreadsheet arithmetic. What a spreadsheet does not do on its own is keep the payback formula non-circular once it is written, or re-check that the ranking still fills the budget correctly after a row is added, removed, or re-priced.
This planner runs the same equivalent-annual-cost comparison and the same saving-per-dollar ranking for every asset you enter, states the assumptions behind them next to the numbers, and exports the full table as CSV — no formula to write, copy down, or re-derive after the fleet changes.
| Question | Where to answer it |
|---|---|
| Can I build this in a spreadsheet? | Yes — the formulas are ordinary, if every row's stays right. |
| Does payback divide by the annual saving or by the cash freed up? | The cash freed up. Dividing by the annual saving after capital is already subtracted counts the purchase twice and understates how fast it pays back. |
| Does filling the budget by total saving find the best subset? | No — rank by saving per dollar of capital, or a few large assets crowd out several smaller, better-returning ones. |
| Can I hand someone the full table without re-deriving it? | This planner's CSV export, not a shared spreadsheet link. |
| Is my data uploaded anywhere? | No. Everything stays in this browser tab; nothing is sent to a server. |
Common questions
Can a spreadsheet do this repair-or-replace comparison?
Yes, in principle: one row per vehicle or machine, a formula for the annual cost of keeping it (repair spend plus downtime days times what a day off the road costs you), a formula for the annual cost of replacing it (net capital spread over its expected service life, plus what the new asset still costs to run), and a rank column to fill a capital budget. Every part of that is ordinary spreadsheet arithmetic. Where it goes wrong is not the formula being hard to write once — it is keeping all of it right across every row, every year, as assets are added, sold, or re-priced.
Where does a hand-built version usually go wrong?
Two places, both easy to get right once and wrong later. First, payback: the honest formula divides the capital outlay by the cash you stop spending each year on repairs and downtime — not by the annual saving after the new asset's own capital cost is already subtracted, which charges the purchase for itself twice and makes a genuinely fast payback look years slower than it is. Second, the ranking: filling a fixed budget by total saving instead of saving per dollar of capital spends the same money on fewer, larger assets and leaves smaller, better-returning ones unfunded. Neither mistake throws an error. The sheet just quietly recommends the wrong thing.
What does this planner do that a spreadsheet does not do for you?
It runs the same equivalent-annual-cost formula, the same non-circular payback formula, and the same saving-per-dollar ranking against your capital budget every time, for every row, with no formula to copy down and no cell reference that can silently point at the wrong row after an asset is added or removed. It also states its own assumptions — straight-line capital with no financing interest, resale valued in the year of purchase, a greedy rather than guaranteed-optimal budget fill — next to the numbers, rather than leaving them implicit in a formula only its author remembers.
If I already track my fleet in a spreadsheet, do I need to switch?
No. Keep the spreadsheet for whatever else it already does — a maintenance log, a mileage tracker, a list of assets. Pull each asset's repair spend and downtime days from it into this planner once a year for the capital-budget decision itself, where getting the payback formula and the ranking right matters most, then go back to the spreadsheet for everything else.
Is anything I enter uploaded anywhere?
No. This planner runs entirely in your browser; nothing you type is uploaded.
Open the repair-or-replace planner, or read why downtime decides this.